Roll-fed printers are a well-known type of printers. In roll-fed printers, a recording medium such as paper is wound up on an input roll and then fed into, and guided along, a path through the printer, unwinding the input roll by and by along the process. In this way, the recording medium is roll-fed (i.e. taken from a roll and fed) to a marking unit of the printer which applies a marking material (prints) onto the recording medium
Roll-to-roll printers are a common type of roll-fed printers and are characterized in that the recording medium is, after images have been printed on it, wound up on an output holder of an output roll by and by along the process.
Some roll-fed printers comprise a cutting unit, i.e. a cutter, being configured to cut the recording medium after images have been printed on it such that the printer does not output the entire contiguous recording medium but instead cut pieces of it.
Some roll-fed printers comprise a laminating unit, i.e. a laminator, being configured to laminate the recording medium after images have been printed on it such that the robustness of the printed images is increased.
Roll-fed printers are very efficient devices for forming a large number of images requiring a large amount of the recording medium, as the wound-up input rolls are comparatively easy to handle by both the printers and their operating personnel. Accordingly, little or no supervision by personnel is needed for roll-fed printers, especially for roll-to-roll printers, as the marked recording medium is automatically stored on the output roll.
However, finishing like cutting or laminating sometimes has its own requirements. For example, the operator wants to initiate a cut along the width of the recording medium. Roll-fed printing apparatuses are known that offer an immediate cut operation invoked by user input on the local user interface of the roll-fed printing apparatus. Or, for example, the operator wants to initiate another finishing action which will cost some preparation time like a warm up of the finishing equipment. Thereto roll-fed printing apparatuses are known that offer an immediate pause action invoked by user input on the local user interface of the roll-fed printing apparatus. However, these functionalities will evoke an immediate interaction. Planning this interaction cannot be done by means of this functionality.
It is desirable to have a method for controlling a roll-fed printing apparatus that makes the operator more flexible when invoking a finishing action any other user action to be applied to the recording medium loaded and used in the roll-fed printing apparatus. It is also desirable to have a roll-fed printing apparatus capable of executing such a method.